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Between Love and Revelation:

Rumi and the Quran

Joseph Lumbard

5ooth Anniversary of Mawlanā Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī

Istanbul, Turkey, May 14-18, 2007

From the time in which Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī lived until today, many have

commented upon the degree to which his Mathnavi is interwoven with the Quran,

incorporating Quranic verses in both the original Arabic and in Persian translation,

drawing upon Quranic symbolism, and serving as an extensive commentary upon

the Quran. The Mathnavi is so intricately related to the Quran that Jāmī has said of

it, hast Quran dar zabān-ī Pahlawī – “It is the Quran in Persian,” and of Rumi

himself, nist payghambar wali darad kitāb, “Though he is not a prophet, he has a

book.” Although only 528 verses from the Quran are cited explicitly in the

Mathnavi, Hadi Haeri has conducted a study demonstrating that no less than 6,000

verses, close to 25% of the Mathnavi, contain paraphrases, direct translations, or

the actual Arabic of the Quran. Thus from its inception to the present, many have

recognized the centrality of the Quran in Rumi’s writings, especially his magnum

opus. Rumi was in a sense immersed in the Quran such that his own words are

saturated with its presence.

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Given the extent to which the Quran informs the Mathnavi, it is surprising to find

that in some verses Rumi speaks in a manner that poses the way of the Quran as

one that is at odds with the way of poetry and song. As he writes in the Divān-i

Shams Tabriz:

My hand always used to hold a Quran, but now it holds love’s flagon.

My mouth was filled with glorification, but now it recites only poetry and

song. (Diwan, 24875)

In another passage, he contrasts the way of the prayer rug and the Quran to the way

of love, writing:

Passion for that Beloved took me away from erudition and reciting the

Quran until I became as insane and obsessed as I am.

I had followed the way of the prayer carpet and the mosque with all

sincerity and effort. I wore the marks of asceticism to increase my good

works.

Love came into the mosque and said, “O great teacher! Rend the shackles

of existence! Why are you tied to prayer carpets? (Diwan, 26404-06)

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Some have taken such verses to mean that Rumi calls the reader to abandon the

outer form of religion for the way of love. When, however, the Quran is

understood as the very warp and woof of his Mathnavi, a much different picture

emerges. Rumi is in fact recognizing that until love overtook him, he knew only

the outward form of religion, and thus only the outermost layer of the Quran.

Reading further in the Mathnavi it becomes apparent that not only does Rumi seek

to explain these inner meanings, he also seeks to teach one how to find these inner

meanings within one’s very self.

In these famous lines of the Mathnavi, Rumi explains the relationship between the

ẓāhir and the bāṭin of the Quran:

Know that the letter of the Quran is an exterior and under the exterior lies

an interior, exceedingly overpowering; (III, 4244)

And beneath that inward a third interior wherein all intellects become

lost.

The fourth interior of the Quran none hath perceived at all, except God,

peerless and incomparable. (III, 4246)

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Seen in this light, a problem that many face is that they look only to the form of the

revelation, a tendency which Rumi likens to the sin of Iblīs, who saw only Adam’s

clay, and not the spirit that had been blown into him. As Rumi writes in the next

verses:

In the Quran do not, O son, regard (only) the exterior: the Devil regards

Adam as naught but clay.

The exterior of the Quran is like a man’s person, for his features are

visible, while his spirit is hidden.

A man’s paternal and maternal uncles (may see him) for a hundred years,

and of his state not see the tip of a hair. (III 4247-9)

From this perspective, one’s encounter with the Quran is only efficacious when

one knows the distinction between sūra and maʿnā, form and meaning. As Rumi

writes, “Having seen its form, you are unaware of the meaning. If you are wise,

pick out the pearl from the shell.” (II 1020-22) Knowing this distinction, one must

in the words of Rumi, “Pass beyond form, escape from names! Flee titles and

names toward meaning.” (IV 1285) He thus admonishes others regarding their

approach to the Quran: “If your sensory ear is fit for the letter, know that your ear
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that receives the hidden is deaf.” (I, 3395) For the sensory ear will only encounter

the form, and is of no use without the ear that receives the hidden inner meaning.

Those who would seek knowledge from the exterior form alone are thus as those

who seek knowledge from the sciences of study and acquisition, rather than from

the way of truth. This for Rumi is the category into which most Quranic exegesis

falls. In this vein, he charges his fellow muslims with having attempted to make

the word of God conform to themselves, rather than conforming themselves to the

word of God, making a play on the meaning of taʾwīl he writes:

So long as desire is fresh, faith is not fresh, for ‘tis this desire that locks

that gate.

You have interpreted the virgin word: interpret thyself, not the Book.

You interpret the Quran according to your desire: by you the sublime

meaning is degraded and perverted. (M I 1079-1081)

For those who continue this path of viewing the inner through the prism of the

outer, Rumi shows nothing but contempt:

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False exegetes, like flies are full of it; their imagination ass-piss, their

thoughts, scuzz.

Were flies to leave taʾwīl and raʾy behind, fortune would turn them into

phoenixes! (M I 1088-9)

From this perspective, revelation has been sent in order transform humanity and

help us live in accord with our true nature, our fiṭrah, but we have continued to

defy it, seeking to analyze the lamp rather than to be nourished by the light within

it. Those who would try to attain to knowledge of the Quran by approaching its

outer meaning are thus like the magicians who attempted to steal Moses’ staff,

regarding which Rumi writes that God said to the Prophet (SAWS), “To thee the

Quran is even as a the staff (of Moses): it swallows up infidelities like a dragon.”

(M III, 1209) Rumi writes that when the magicians attempted to steal it, the staff

became a Dragon and thereupon they realized that Moses was truly a prophet and

asked that he forgive them their sins. To expand upon his analogy of the Quran to

the staff, we could say that for those who believe they can acquire something of the

Quran, but do not recognize its true nature, its meaning will overwhelm them

unless they seek to serve it, rather than asking it to serve them, just as Moses’ staff

overwhelmed the Magicians.

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The way to overcome this and to benefit from the Quran is found in this famous

passage from Rumi’s Fihi ma Fihi wherein he likens the Quran to a veiled bride

The Koran is like a bride. Although you pull the veil away from her face, she

does not show herself to you. When you investigate the Koran, but receive

no joy or mystical unveiling, it is because your pulling at the veil has caused

you to be rejected. The Koran has deceived you and shown itself as ugly. It

says, “I am not this beautiful bride.” It is able to show itself in any form it

desires. But if you stop pulling at its veil and seek its good pleasure; if you

water its field, serve it from afar and strive in that which pleases it, then it

will show you its face w/o any need for you to draw aside its veil. (Fīhi mā

fīhi, 229)

Serving the Quran in this way and living its message rather than analyzing is thus

the only way to penetrate into its true meaning. Through this path can one

understand it, as its maʿnā is the same as the essence of one’s spirit. Thus Rumi

writes:

Ask the meaning of the Quran from the Quran alone, and from that one
who has set fire to his idle fancy.
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And has become a sacrifice to the Quran and is abased, so that the Quran
has become the essence of his spirit. (M V 3128-9)
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Seek the people of Enter Thou among My servants, Enter thou My garden!

God does not speak to every one, just as the kings of this world do not speak to
every weaver; they have appointed a vizier and a deputy to show the way to the
king. God most high also has chosen a certain servant, so whoever seeks God,
God is in him. All the prophets have come for this reason, that only they are the
way. (Fīhi mā fīhi, 229)

Know that the word of the Quran have an exterior and under the exterior an
interior, exceedingly overpowering; (III, 4244)
And beneath that inward a third interior wherein all intellects become lost.
The fourth interior of the Quran none hath perceived at all, except God and
peerless and incomparable. (iii, 4246)
In the Quran do not, O son, regard (only) the exterior: the Devil regards
Adam as naught but clay.
The exterior of the Quran is like a man’s person, for his features are visible,
while his spirit is hidden.